Worms is back! Again! Cue numerous “how hard is your worm?” comments! This time around, though, it’s not a new game. No, it’s an expansion pack for Worms 2 on Xbox LIVE Arcade. The Worms 2 Armageddon Battle Pack includes new weapons and utilities, a new campaign, new customization features, new achievements and a brand new mode to play.
The new mode is called “Body Count”. It pits a single worm against a never-ending army of enemies. The aim is to amass the largest number of kills before being defeated. Naturally, there are LIVE Leaderboards for players to compete for bragging rights.
The single-player campaign features 30 new single-player Deathmatches. It rewards players who complete them all with an Achievement.
The new weapons sound great fun. The Three Ferrets is mysteriously described as “an animal-based explosive attack”. Termites allow quick tunnel creation. Marked For Death doubles damage taken on a particularly worm. Invisibility and Steal are pretty self-explanatory. And Worship places a statue in the landscape which heals the user’s team while damaging others. There’s an Achievement for using all the new weapons, too.
Fans of the Forts mode are catered for with 10 new Forts, including 2 designed by Facebook Worms fans. There’s also a new variant on Forts mode called “Super Forts”, and another Achievement for winning a game on each new Fort.
Those who like to customize their worms have a range of new voices and hats to choose from, as well as new color variants of all existing hats. There’s also the opportunity for players to customize their HUD, 40 new player titles and two custom particle sets.
And on top of all this, there’s 7 new landscape themes to play on, too.
All in all, it’s a pretty good value package that should add significant value to Worms 2. It costs 400 points from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
Are people still playing Worms 2, though? The thing with Xbox LIVE Arcade titles is that they tend to be played a lot shortly after release, but online populations decline over time. Now that there are over 250 Arcade titles available, not to mention online juggernauts like Modern Warfare 2, it’s easy to wonder if anyone’s going to be online.
Of course, Worms 2 is a game in which this doesn’t matter so much. The game is arguably better when played local multiplayer. Dead arms, cans of beer and swearing in each other’s face are all key parts of the experience. This expansion pack might just convince people who have set the game aside for some time to give it another shot.
The Worms 2 Armageddon Battle Pack is available now for 400 points.
